Hi, I finally made switch to Vortex from Ally yesterday using my exchange period in Costco. Overall I like it very much! It's still too early to write in-depth report. But here are my first observations, impressions.
Form factor:
This is one of the biggest reason why I got it. It feels very nice in hand. Not too heavy, not to light. Looks quite sleek. It's a little wider, shorter, thinner than Ally. Seems just slightly thicker than Fascinate.
UI, speed:
It comes with android 2.2 froyo on board and got 512mb of RAM. It feels surprisingly snappy and smooth in scrolling, swiping through home screens. Launching basic apps like browser, facebook, calendar, email feels fairly quick too. Actually it feels pretty much like my friend's Dinc, Fascinate in the screen UI speed. One downside here is the lack of pure stock android UI. It has LG home launcher on top of 2.2 although Ally had both LG home theme and pure stock android launcher. But this LG home theme doesn't deviate much from the standard android UI look. It only adds fixed bottom icon row (phone, contact, message, browser) on any screen. I will probably use Launcher Pro later on. Anyway the UI speed is very remarkable even with stock LG home launcher.
Screen quality:
This is 3.2" HVGA screen. Coming from Ally's 3.2" WVGA screen, I can see a little bit of more pixelation on screen but it's not too bad looking. Brightness/contrast seems pretty high even at low setting with vibrant colors.
Sharpness/clarity looks good too, but Ally was better in dpi. But I like its aspect ratio being a little wider, shorter. It feels like I have a little larger screen.
GPS, call quality:
I first had trouble locating my position in Google maps using GPS radio. It failed twice. So I turned on the Google location based service in the setting, then it worked fine locking within a minute. Bing map seems to work well too, locking pretty fast and accurately. I haven't tested GPS navigation yet. Navigation is not big issue for me since I have separate Garmin device in my car. Call signal seems to pick up well in my area. I haven't tested many calls yet to judge call quality. But if Ally was any indication, I expect it to be equally good.
Web browsing:
It's not like twice faster or better over Ally like I expected, but reasonably fast in stock browser. Strangely some oversea sites are loading noticeably slower than U.S sites. So I installed Dolphin HD and it didn't have this problem. I should see if this issue persists in stock browser.
Battery life:
It's too early to judge this, but it seems fine. I haven't fully optimized apps/settings the way I want yet. There are weather widget, three emails set to push with auto-sync, and the battery drain rate in standby seems like 3% per hour which is not too bad. I should see how it goes with medium usage daily. I'm sure it can improved later with some adjustments and Launcher Pro.
Overall it's pretty solid mid-range phone. I don't miss big boys like Dinc, Fascinate except for the screen quality. My only gripes are lack of LED notification light and it's got Bing search by default. As I find mores from the phone, I will share it here.
Form factor:
This is one of the biggest reason why I got it. It feels very nice in hand. Not too heavy, not to light. Looks quite sleek. It's a little wider, shorter, thinner than Ally. Seems just slightly thicker than Fascinate.
UI, speed:
It comes with android 2.2 froyo on board and got 512mb of RAM. It feels surprisingly snappy and smooth in scrolling, swiping through home screens. Launching basic apps like browser, facebook, calendar, email feels fairly quick too. Actually it feels pretty much like my friend's Dinc, Fascinate in the screen UI speed. One downside here is the lack of pure stock android UI. It has LG home launcher on top of 2.2 although Ally had both LG home theme and pure stock android launcher. But this LG home theme doesn't deviate much from the standard android UI look. It only adds fixed bottom icon row (phone, contact, message, browser) on any screen. I will probably use Launcher Pro later on. Anyway the UI speed is very remarkable even with stock LG home launcher.
Screen quality:
This is 3.2" HVGA screen. Coming from Ally's 3.2" WVGA screen, I can see a little bit of more pixelation on screen but it's not too bad looking. Brightness/contrast seems pretty high even at low setting with vibrant colors.
Sharpness/clarity looks good too, but Ally was better in dpi. But I like its aspect ratio being a little wider, shorter. It feels like I have a little larger screen.
GPS, call quality:
I first had trouble locating my position in Google maps using GPS radio. It failed twice. So I turned on the Google location based service in the setting, then it worked fine locking within a minute. Bing map seems to work well too, locking pretty fast and accurately. I haven't tested GPS navigation yet. Navigation is not big issue for me since I have separate Garmin device in my car. Call signal seems to pick up well in my area. I haven't tested many calls yet to judge call quality. But if Ally was any indication, I expect it to be equally good.
Web browsing:
It's not like twice faster or better over Ally like I expected, but reasonably fast in stock browser. Strangely some oversea sites are loading noticeably slower than U.S sites. So I installed Dolphin HD and it didn't have this problem. I should see if this issue persists in stock browser.
Battery life:
It's too early to judge this, but it seems fine. I haven't fully optimized apps/settings the way I want yet. There are weather widget, three emails set to push with auto-sync, and the battery drain rate in standby seems like 3% per hour which is not too bad. I should see how it goes with medium usage daily. I'm sure it can improved later with some adjustments and Launcher Pro.
Overall it's pretty solid mid-range phone. I don't miss big boys like Dinc, Fascinate except for the screen quality. My only gripes are lack of LED notification light and it's got Bing search by default. As I find mores from the phone, I will share it here.
